Mais c'est vrai.

Merci Colette.

Aulnay. (17 - Charente-Maritime)

- Dans l'église d'Aulnay, un chapiteau est sculpté d'éléphants. Personne n'est vraiment capable, aujourd'hui, de dire pourquoi. Ils sont un peu bizarres. Le sculpteur n'en avait sans doute jamais vu, il a reproduit ce qu'on lui a raconté.

- St Mandé est à 5 km de chez nous. Comme la plupart des églises de notre campagne, elle date du 12ème siècle et ses ornements ont pu être faits par les mêmes sculpteurs qu' Aulnay (généralement, ces artistes étaient itinérants).

- Plus que deux photos à venir.

Thank you Gilles.

Mesmerizing.

It is that celebrated author again with the mesmerizing Bonnie.

Thoughts.

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Here are two humble examples of fortified churches. The thought is when things got bad in the neighborhood the church became a place of refuge. As might be imagined from a quick glance at the Hary edifice maybe the church was built on to an existing tower. There is nothing new in this. Consider the tower at Abbaye de Notre-Dame du Bec, interestingly enough called the Saint Nicolas Tower. There can be little doubt what the tower was intended to do. The Saint Denis Basillica is an even more provocative possible example of what was once something else becoming what it is today.

Burelles



Hary

Thanks Gilles and Marthe for the Hary and the Burelles photographs. More on the Abbaye might be found here:

http://www.abbayedubec.com/

For the Basillica search: Basillique de Saint-Denis

(Caution on l'Abbaye du Bec-Hellouin. Some of the info on it is a little off date, like for instance where it is which is strange considering it is in Bec-Hellouin.)

Noel en France.